Personalization & Customer Data Platform Ideas and Strategies

I recently attendedGartner’s Customer 360 conference. It was great to spend three days with a group of customer-focused executives sharing experiences and learning from one another. Here are my top 4 memorable quotes:

Personalandrelevantare, of course, essential but not new concepts to me. We have been thinking about how to help our customers withthissince we started Apptegic.

However, Seth’s emphasis onanticipatedstruck me, especially since he had just given his purple cow analogy about standing out and being remarkable. Remarkable seems at first to be the opposite of anticipated. But it’s not. At its least compelling, anticipated communication means not being spam. There is tacit permission that is given to receiving communication from a company. For the above average company, anticipated is expected. The customer expects to receive a communication and does. But, for the remarkable company, customers’ anticipate (actively desire and look forward) to the communication.

2. “Customer service can deliver compelling insights to marketing and be a powerful channel for marketing messages.“Gareth Herschel and Michael Maoz, Gartner

During their talk on How Marketing and Customer Service will become BFFs, Gareth and Michael elaborated on this quote. During a Customer Service interaction, the customer is engaged and thinking about your company. It is a great time to communicate – ie learn from them and message to them.

In this context, Gareth and Michael mentioned that a campaign triggered by an actual customer action is 5x more successful and is 10x higher if the message is given during a conversation. I have had several discussions withLarry Streeterthat have influenced my thinking about the importance of linking customer insight based on customer behavior back directly into the customer service department.

3. “The experience that you provide customers will generate a voice inside their heads. You can’t hear it, but it will be screaming at you.” Jim Davies, Gartner Jim went on to talk about the three kinds of voice of the customer:

Churn because of your efforts (these are sleeping dogs). Your communications might remind them of your service and call them to cancel --- Don’t make the mistake of awakening them!

Renew because of your efforts --- Focus here.

How do you tell the difference in advance? By looking at each customer’s profile (their characteristics, business data, and behavior) and comparing that to the profile of other customers who responded to past efforts in the ways listed above.

For those of you who attended, what was one of the best quotes you remember from the conference?